Zombie Horror At Its Best!!!

Rating: 8/10 (29 March 2008)

It's not often that fans of the horror genre are treated to an original twist in the genre and it is even rarer to be treated to a truly scary and well done zombie movie. However 28 Days Later attempts to do just that and succeeds quite well in both regards.
The story is set in England in where animal right activists break into a research facility in an attempt to free captive animals being used for medical experiments. Unbeknownst to them is the fact that these animals are carrying a highly dangerous and contagious disease known as Rage which is passed and contracted via bodily fluids and ultimately turns the infected hosts into blood thirsty zombies. 28 days after the animals are released the population of England is all but decimated by the disease and a few handful of survivors are clinging to life trying to survive the days and nights hiding from hordes of raging zombies. Our story begins when Jim, a patient in a hospital, awakens from a coma to find that the hospital and the city around him are vacant and destroyed. Jim, unaware of what has taken place over the past 28 days, sets out to discover what has become of not only his family but everyone around him. It isn't long before Jim encounters the blood thirsty monsters and his quest for answers is turned into a battle for survival. Along the way he makes contact with survivors and does his best to find his way in a terrifying new reality where anarchy and social rules are all but done away with.
What I really liked about this movie was that unlike most horror movies where the main characters have virtually no common sense and spend their time splitting up and systematically being killed off one by one, the survivors in this movie realize that it is in their best interest to stick together in order to better their chances of survival and only leave each other's sides out of necessity. The fact that a "logical" approach was taken towards a genre which has often seen little logic truly makes this movie frightening, as even though they attempt to make logical decisions, they still sustain losses.
What I also liked about this movie was the originality of the way in which the "zombies" originated that being via a disease/virus. This theme has since been copied many times over and with little shame in doing so.
The acting was good and the fact that there were no big names added to the thrill of story since one never really knew who was going to survive and who was going to die, making every scene that much more tense.
In the end, even if this movie never got the press it deserved and wasn't hyped to the level of other lesser movies of the same type, this remains one of the better movies in a genre sorely in need of better quality films.